Evidence for Probe into Kelly's Death Issued in Britain

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, August 24, 2003

Evidence for Probe into Kelly's Death Issued in Britain

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An judicial inquiry probing into British weapons expert David Kelly's apparent suicide, which has triggered the worst crisis in Prime Minister Tony Blair's premiership, published Saturday some 9,000 pages of evidence onto the Internet, revealing the inner working of Downing Street.

The documents were submitted by the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defense, the BBC, the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee and newspapers and can from now on be read on the inquiry's website: www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk.

Many of them, including private e-mails and memos from the heart of the British government, would normally have been kept secret for 30 years, said local media reports.

The documents reveal that Blair's private meetings inside Number 10 as he and his aides debated whether to announce Kelly had admitted contacts with BBC reporter Andrew Gillian. Kelly was the source of Gillian's report accusing Downing Street had "sexed up" evidence over Iraq war.

It was also revealed Saturday that Blair's top aide, Downing Street's media chief Alastair Campbell, once urged the prime minister to be calm in rebutting BBC reports claiming that the government had "sexed up" its case for Iraq war. Kelly has been confirmed as the source of the May 29 BBC reports after he died with a slit wrist on July 18.

Campbell's June 3 memo, written to help prepare Blair for an appearance in the House of Commons, urged him to try to "calm the frenzy" over the dispute on case for Iraq war, which was stirred up by the BBC's reports.

"But when you go on to the broader issues, in particular reporting back on Iraq, I think you should display a more combative approach," he wrote to Blair.

"What is clearly happening here is that the relatively more sober coverage of the war is giving way to the more usual frenzied media, and the aim of our opponents is to contaminate the success you had as a war leader in Iraq," the memo said.

The full drafts of last September's key dossier about Iraq's weapons, including the claim that Saddam could unleash weapons of mass destruction, are also now on public show on the inquiry's website.

Since Kelly's death, the British government has been suffering its first sustained slump in popularity and polls show that a majority of Britons question the government's credibility.

Blair now is set to testify before Lord Hutton's inquiry Thursday, one day after Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, who is seen as a possible fall guy in the affair.

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